Latest market data

Stock search

Decades of political upheaval that thwarted economic development in Haiti began giving way last year to a semblance of stability. But a push to promote jobs in industries like garment manufacturing was dealt a serious blow by this week's devastating earthquake.

After decades of political corruption, civil unrest and massive unemployment, the tiny, impoverished country was just recently enjoying a small measure of stability. A series of public and private initiatives had spurred hope that economic development might finally end the misery of millions of people living on less than two dollars a day.

But the massive earthquake that flattened Haiti’s capital, left millions homeless and killed an estimated 50,000 also crushed hopes that the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation was beginning to dig itself out of abject poverty.

"Since about 2004 there had been a determination by the United Nations and by the international community in general that they were going to make a sustained effort at trying to develop Haiti as a functioning state and as a functioning economy,” said Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This, of course, sets back the entire Haitian economy."

It may be some time before the longer-term impact on Haiti’s efforts to bootstrap its economy can be known. Officials are still struggling to develop estimates of loss of life and infrastructure damage. In the short term, the local economy likely will see a boost from a flood of international aid, including humanitarian relief and infrastructure reconstruction. But it is not at all clear that those efforts will translate into a lasting foundation for a economic development.

"There is going to be abundant capital to grow,” said Rafael Amiel, managing director for Latin America and the Caribbean at IHS Global Insight, a research firm. “How they handle that is the key question. This can jump-start a very good thing, because there’s going to be money. But usually small economies are very bad at spending money."

The job of developing Haiti’s economy — less than half as big as Vermont's — is daunting. Two-thirds of its 9 million people are unemployed. Public education is not widely available. Infrastructure, health and social services are often worse than in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank. Severe deforestation has crippled the agricultural economy and left the country's residents vulnerable to hurricanes, floods and landslides.

As it has struggled to pull itself out of poverty, Haiti has sustained numerous blows in recent years. In May 2004, three days of heavy rains and floods killed more than 2,600. Later that year, Tropical Storm Jeanne brought floods and landslides killing 1,900 and leaving 200,000 homeless. In 2008, three hurricanes and a tropical storm killed some 800, devastated crops and caused $1 billion in damage.

That has created a kind of crisis response to economic recovery that has hindered a longer-term approach to Haiti’s development, according to Riordan Roette, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in Latin America.

“Sure, you can put things back together again — build rickety houses, get water flowing again, fix the presidential palace, but that doesn’t do anything,” he said. “The underlying issues have got to be addressed.”

Even before the quake, Haiti faced major challenges in its bid to join other Caribbean success stories and build an economy that could lift its people out of poverty. The physical infrastructure was only the beginning. Much of the Haiti’s skilled labor force has left the country for better job opportunities in the U.S., Canada and neighboring Dominican Republic, sending money home to support family and friends. Remittances from abroad generate roughly 20 percent of Haiti’s GDP.

For decades, economic development has also been thwarted by widespread corruption and political infighting among a handful of the ruling elite. After decades of civil strife, the 2006 election of President Rene Preval had restored some measure of political stability.

But Haiti’s political infrastructure sustained heavy damage in the quake. The National Palace —Haiti’s White House — was destroyed, along with buildings housing the Parliament and other government offices such as the tax office. The chaos also exposes long-standing fault lines in Haiti’s fractious political and business leadership, according to Roette.

“It’s going to take political leadership, and Preval can’t do it himself,” he said. “A benign hand from outside — not just the United States — might be just be the way to neutralize that competitiveness in Haitian society and allow them to draw up a long-term plan.”

Over the past few years, a number of public and private initiatives have been launched as part of a long-term effort to build a Haitian economy. The Inter-American Development Bank assembled $700 million in grants and loans, much of which has been invested in building roads and expanding access to water — infrastructure that was heavily damaged by the quake. The IADB also granted Haiti more than half a billion dollars in debt relief, freeing up more government funding for anti-poverty programs.

Former President Bill Clinton, named last year as a special envoy to Haiti by the U.N., also has been tapping public and private sector investment. In October, more than 500 private delegates and 150 public officials met in Port-au-Prince to develop plans to create more jobs.

One of those efforts included a $2 million fund to boost textile manufacturing, which generates some $130 million in exports. Last year, Congress extended duty-free access to Haitian garment makers in hopes of creating tens of thousands of new jobs.

But those garment exports make up just a few percentage points of GDP. To create a sustainable path out of poverty, Haiti will need to attract the private capital that has fueled the development of emerging economies in the Americas.

“For any of these countries what you need is a proper regulatory framework and the rule of law that allows foreign investors to come in and feel secure investing their money,” said Rafael de la Fuente, chief Latin American economist at BNP Paribas.

Rebuilding Haiti’s economy also will depend heavily on maintaining a level of security that had been restored after years of high crime rates and street violence inflicted by armed gangs. Calm has been restored largely through the efforts of a U.N. peacekeeping mission set up after the 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The quake has thrown that mission into disarray. The head of the mission, Hédi Annabi, and his deputy are among the missing along with 140 other U.N. workers. The main prison in the capital collapsed, and there were reports that inmates had escaped. On Thursday, police and U.N. peacekeepers reported looters roaming downtown shops.

For now, the focus remains on the overwhelming humanitarian effort to provide food, shelter and medical care to the quake’s survivors. The long-term outlook for Haiti’s economy won’t be known until the crisis subsides.

But to be successful, the effort to build a sustainable economy will require a commitment of a decade or more, according to Roette.

"This is an extraordinary opportunity — which we probably are going to waste — to start over and recreate a state in Haiti,” he said.

Video: Bill Clinton: $10 can make a difference

Closed captioning of: Bill Clinton: $10 can make a difference

>>president bill clinton
is the
united nationsspecial envoy
for
haiti
. he's been tapped by
president obama
along with former
president george w. bush
to lead the
private sector
fund-raising efforts.
president clinton
, good to see you. good morning.

>>thank you, matt.

>>we're starting to hear that the effort is well under way. i think the response from the
united states
and other countries has been pretty swift and impressive. there are survival stories. that's good news. i know one of the messages you want to communicate this morning, sir, is that you want americans to be generous at this time of need for the
haitian people
.

>>i do. let's look at where we are. first of all, we're still finding people alive. we've got 21 more search-and-rescue teams coming in today, but they don't have enough water, they don't have enough food, they don't have enough medical supplies. we've still got to find shelter for all those people that have no place to go at night, and that's the way to make it safer. so, i want to first thank all the americans who have given. to our u.n. fund, which is clintonfoundation.org/
haiti
earthquake, people who just texted "
haiti
" at 20222 and automatically given $10. if you want to just give $10, you can make a huge difference, because we've got another week or so of the work you see on television. i know people say, well, the first
72 hours
is critical, but believe me, even in the fourth day we'll be pulling people out of the rubble who are alive. while that gets done, we've got to move the food, the water and the medical supplies in, and they're getting better organized at the airport, the
american military
's been terrific, both with the navy and
coast guard
efforts on the water.

>>right.

>>with the helicopters coming in. people coming in everywhere else. but
everybody needs
to focus on the fact -- you see all those people coming out alive. they have to have water and food, and all of the people that are homeless have to have it.

>>and then you start --

>>and medical supplies are still short.

>>right. you talk about what this is going to cost. you're someone who has an awful lot of experience raising an awful lot of money for the
clinton global initiative
, billions of dollars so far. is this a case now,
president clinton
, where you
pick up the phone
and you talk to some of the people who have been so generous to you in the past, these major contributors, and you say, look, i need you more than ever now? and how are they responding?

>>oh, very well. i even had a man yesterday complain -- i had a meeting with more than 50 people yesterday who were philanthropists and nongovernmental leaders interested in
haiti
and
private investors
. the meeting was scheduled before the earthquake. they all
still wanted
to come. they all said we're in for the long run. and one man said, "i don't think you've asked me for enough." i think that as we get into the recovery and the rebuilding phase of this, that's what former
president bush
and i are supposed to do. we're going to keep america involved over the long run. the taxpayers alone can't do this. but i was really encouraged. i talked by phone to all the major countries that are donors, and i had a meeting with these individual efforts, and everybody's committed for the long run.
haiti
was on the path to making a real modern state there before this earthquake, and once this crisis passes, we're just going to modify the plan they were on to take account of this damage done and go back to work, and the
american people
can help. and i know they will.

>>when you talk to former
president bush
, did the two of you come up with -- i don't mean to put you on the spot here,
president clinton
, but did the two of you come up with a number, a figure, a goal in terms of fund-raising, what you think it's going to take to rebuild that country? and in some cases, we're not talking about rebuilding, we're talking about building from scratch.

>>well, the short answer is no, because we've got to get through the next week to ten days first doing all the recovery of bodies we can, people living and dead. and then getting the worst of the debris out of the way so that that work can be done again. during that time, we are reconstituting our
united nations
team, you know, the people i worked with down there for the last year. we lost a huge number of people, but a lot of them i know are still alive under that rubble. so, we're rebuilding our ability to do damage assessment, as is everyone else. at that time, we'll have a better idea of what the responsibilities are, what role the
united states
should take and what role our people should fulfill, and we'll tell the
american people
that and we'll go about raising the money.

>>you know, this is the poorest country in the
western hemisphere
, very little in the way of infrastructure was there before this quake. i heard some official yesterday on the air,
president clinton
, saying that this quake will set that country back 50 years. and yet, you just sounded very optimistic. you wrote yesterday that
haiti
is not doomed. and as we look at the pictures of the devastation, i'm just curious what gives you that sense of hope?

>>first of all, before this earthquake hit, we had worked hard for a year to adopt, have the haitian government adopt an economic plan designed to improve investment, get more jobs there, get more
clean energy
there, improve the schools, improve the
health care
, the infrastructure, the roads, the agriculture. they had a plan, and we were implementing it. secondly, because they started from a low base, we can reconstitute where they are quicker than everyone thinks. i just do not agree that they've been set back 50 years. that's a decision for them and for us. but if we go back to work, we'll be all right. but first we have to get through the time which is disastrous now because we don't have enough food, water, medical supplies and shelter. that's why we've asked so many people first to focus on the
basic human needs
. get us through the next two weeks and then former
president bush
and i will go back to work. the president's been great,
president obama
, and the secretary of state, usaid, they're all committed to the long run. we're going to be fine there. i think you'll be amazed how much good we can do, but i don't want to minimize how awful it is now. let's get through this first.

>>former
president bill clinton
.
president clinton
, thanks for your time this morning. good luck to you.